1265.000 Moraea Mill.

Perennial herbs, dying back each year, with corms. Foliage leaves 1-several. Inflorescence composed of rhipidia; rhipidia 1 per branch or crowded terminally, each enclosed in a pair of spathes. Flowers actinomorphic, Iris-like, usually blue or yellow. Ovary long-pedicellate. Style divided into 3 flat petaloid branches, these apically forked into 2 crests; stigma transverse and abaxial below base of crests. Anthers appressed to the style branches. Fruit a capsule.

Derivation of name: (originally Morea) named after Robert More, Esquire of Shropshire, botanist and natural historian, who was a contemporary of Miller and Linnaeus. The name was altered by Linnaeus into Moraea, presumably in honour of Linaeus's father-in-law Johan Moraeus,

Worldwide: 120 species in tropical and South Africa

Botswana: 4 taxa.